Twelve years later, I still hear the fire brigade siren driving me to the hospital this afternoon in February 2001.
Standing in the fountain, water mid-calf and without feeling the cold of February, I run my tickets by humming until the arrival of firefighters ...
They were called because at lunchtime, in the middle of the street, I felt invested with a mission: I am a "envoy" of the Virgin Mary and I must "do good", whereas I I am agnostic, not far from being atheist! I go to a place and I distribute the coins of my wallet to passersby. Then I cram the fountain to give the tickets. I do not know why. Maybe because I saw a few days earlier "La dolce vita", where Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni meet in Trevi, Rome? I barely have a few notes on me, so I go to the vending machine and remove my daily ceiling, 900. I feel happy to give what I own.
The big delusional crisis of my bipolar life
Once in the emergency room, I am not aware that I am in a psychiatric ward. I imagine myself in Jerusalem in movie studios to shoot with Martin Scorsese on the Mount of Olives. Yet I do not work in the cinema, I'm an economist in a bank and I've never been to Israel.
That day, at 36, I am doing the "big" delusional crisis of my bipolar life.
Fortunately, the only one. Thanks to my hospitalization, I finally fall on a psychiatrist who diagnoses my bipolarity. Since then, I take medications that regulate my mood, which I will do the rest of my life not to relapse.
A disorder with two faces
There are two sides to bipolar disorder: months of euphoria followed by months of depression. My crisis on the spot is the peak of one of my phases of euphoria, but it is not my daily life. Before the diagnosis, I alternate months of exaltation, which last for two and a half to three years in a row, during which I have a hellish fishing and a confidence in me that give me all the audacities but I do not wander. Then I fall into a depression carabinée for six to ten months, where I feel a deep disgust of me and a weariness of living so intense that everything becomes insurmountable.
I sleep all day, nothing interests me anymore.
However, nothing special has upset my life that can justify this change.
I know today that it is peculiar to the disease. Some doctors prescribe antidepressant doses of horse, which have the effect of rushing me into an umpteenth phase "up", even more violent. I will learn later that they are other drugs, very specific, mood stabilizers, which treat bipolar disorder.
More constructive periods despite my bipolarity
Between these two stages, I saw a quieter latency that lasts two to three months, a kind of emotional sea of oil, where I am neither at the bottom of the hole nor exalted. Then the cycle begins again, two-three years of hyperactivity and well-being. Yes, well-being. This is what makes this pathology diabolical, because before arriving at feverishness or an extreme crisis, it is the nirvana to live these months up!
Imagine, during my cycles of almost three years, my existence resembles that of a skater who evolves with more and more joy.
It allowed me to get into the biggest challenges of my professional life , I dared to apply and I got the positions that made me dream.
I go for it and I act, I carbide to the challenge
Everyday, my responsibilities never paralyze me. It's even the opposite: the bigger the stake, the more I am transported. I go for it and I act, I carbide to the challenge.
I sleep five and a half hours a night maximum, and, barely raised, I am mounted on springs. My ideas are fusing. I treat a bunch of files without ever doubting my skills or even feeling tired. I skip meetings in statistical forecasts without ever losing the thread, always with a train in advance. So, I am appreciated by my hierarchy. I see myself as a dynamic girl who is not afraid of anything and who, in addition, has left. The great drama is that we do not stay that way forever, juggling our extraordinary energy. At a certain moment, there is a rise in emotional power, where everything accelerates, too fast, too much. It is during this period of acceleration that I lose my footing and that I commit my extravagances.
It starts a few months before the episode of the fountain: professionally, I'm in burn-out, but I do not pay attention. I sleep only three hours a night. Sometimes I lie down fully dressed, to go faster the next morning. Before going to the bank, I work three hours at home.
Obsessionally, I check the numbers of each table created the day before or I edit the same chart in multiple copies, with typography and different colors. Every morning, I vacuum the apartment so that the carpet is smoothed in the same direction. At the same time, my self-confidence makes me megalomaniac. I impose myself everywhere. While I'm not part of a project, I'm still building statistics and a plan I'm presenting.
My superiors are dumbfounded. For me, they are blown away by my argument.
I never see that I am out of frame, ridiculous and, above all, sick.
On a personal level, I feel the obsessive need to please the greatest number.
My bipolarity involves compulsive sexuality and excessive shopping
Sexually, I am another, I shamelessly flirt with one of my colleagues, while I am in love with my man. Since then, my psychiatrist has explained to me that this is one of the consequences of the disease, during seizures, and that more than half of the bipolars have sexual compulsive overflows .
So I try to seduce, as if it were to satisfy an animal need.
Many times I went to a bar to meet men and also in swingers clubs.
It's painful to mention it because it's not me, I'm a romantic lover. Moreover, I multiply compulsive purchases to the point of going into debt and being stuck at the Bank of France. And so on until the episode of the fountain ... To know that I have committed all these extravagances is unbearable to me. I feel bad.
Paradoxically, my phases of depression are almost "easier" to endorse in my memories. However, my dark thoughts made me flirt with death ... It's terrible to have the feeling of being a useless woodlouse on earth. Self-deception is inflicted on loved ones, but it stays in family intimacy, you do not appear in society. It is thanks to my psychiatrist that my man is always at my side. When I am hospitalized, he is overwhelmed by the debts I accumulate and he can not stand my "hysteria" anymore. He is convinced that I am making fun of him.
I accepted my bipolarity, since I feel better in my skin
It took me time to accept my illness. That actors like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Ben Stiller reveal to suffer for me was a great help.
My bank dismissed me, but for five years, I rework part time as a professor of economics in a private institute. Because of the drugs , I do not have the concentration necessary to assume the same professional responsibilities as before and I would be afraid to make odd in my economic forecasts.
Because by releasing me from my terrifying "up and down", I also lost the good insurance, actually dummy, with which I took my life for years.
I wanted to testify because I would like the readers not to be afraid to consult if they recognize themselves a little in my description, that they do not wait for a big crisis, that they know that my friends did not all run away, that my man did not abandon me. This is the positive point of the story: at least I know he really loves me.
